They are all down at base camp. Martin Adams and Anatoli Boukreev went down to Dingboche. They wanted to go down lower and get their strength at a lower altitude. Anatoli's an absolute believer that you have to get lower than base camp to totally recover, to get really ready.

And all the rest--including Tim Madsen and Charlotte Fox--are all going to leave on the 6th for the summit. Their goal is to summit on the 9th.

Right now everything looks OK. Basically everybody is doing pretty well. Certainly it's good that they all have the attitude to want to go, to try it. Even though Tim and Charlotte have had difficulties with acclimatization, they are willing to give it an attempt.

Scott had quite a powwow with Tim and Charlotte. He told them they can't make separate attempts with different people. If they want to do it, they all have to do it, one time. He can't be making additional summit attempts with other people.

There's not much else to report other than they are all going to go for it. Scott thinks there's a chance they all will make it on top. You never know.

Klev Schoening is an A-plus for the summit. They think there is no doubt he is going to summit. He's super, super strong. He was on the ski race development team for the Olympics, and he's tremendously strong.

And Scott basically has been up and down and up and down with different members at different points of the expedition. And he's feeling super strong, acclimatized and strong.

Neal Beidleman will probably be climbing with oxygen. His ribs are sore from coughing so much. Pete Schoening, he's literally sleeping with oxygen at night.

Lene Gammelgaard is still wanting to go without oxygen. But they've been having some discussions about the risk to her and the rest of the group if that means there might have to be some sort of rescue. In that case, everybody else is affected. You don't want to be in a situation where everyone else is coming down like dominoes because of a rescue.

All the other teams are basically on the same schedule for the summit.

Goran Kropp right now is basically doing his own thing, fixing his own ropes. I think Goran is a little bit nervous about it.

Lobsang just returned from Kathmandu (where he was with his uncle Nawang, after a serious medical emergency.). They are very happy that Lobsang has returned. Nawang is responding, his eyes are open, but right now he has a respirator going so he can't talk.

So at this point, everybody is just chilling out right now, eating and conserving energy. There's nothing particularly exciting right now.

-- Jane Bromet